Robyn: Robyn

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Contents: Curriculum vitae (featuring Swingfly) — Konichiwa bitches — Cobrastyle — Handle me — Bum like you — Be mine! — With every heartbeat (with Kleerup) — Who's that girl — Bionic woman — Crash and burn girl — Robotboy — Eclipse — Should have known — Any time you like — Dream on — Handle me (RedOne remix).
Notable lyrics: "Good girls are pretty all the time/ I'm just pretty some of the time/ Good girls are happy and satisfied/ I won't stop asking till I die" ("Who's That Girl").
People wrote: "As a teenager in 1997, Robyn scored hits with 'Do You Know (What It Takes)' and 'Show Me Love.' But the Swedish singer, now 28, seemed on her way to being another teen-pop has-been until her electro-pop makeover on Robyn, which has already found success in Europe. She deserves to be shown some love in the U.S. too: Packing plenty of hooks and attitude on songs like 'Handle Me' and 'Bum Like You,' she comes off like a younger, cooler Kylie Minogue" (5/5/08, p. 46).

Rzewski Plays Rzewski: Piano Works, 1975-1999

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Matthew Gurewitsch wrote in the New York Times: "In photographs the American composer Frederic Rzewski resembles an Old Testament prophet, all high-domed brow, deep-gazing eyes and white, wind-swept hair. … He turned 70 on April 13, 'and for some reason, it made me go back to Ibycus,' he said. He quoted the poet’s haunted lines about falling in love in old age: 'Like the old racehorse, I tremble at the prospect of the course which I am to run, and which I know so well.' Mr. Rzewski reads the ancient Greeks in the original. … Once asked if commentators were right to call him a Marxist composer, he snorted, 'Harpo or Groucho or what?' The anarchic streak in his music is as much comic as it is political. Somewhere in his seven-CD box 'Rzewski Plays Rzewski: Piano Works, 1975-1999' on the Nonesuch label, between fantasias on protest songs and chapters of his mammoth pianistic 'novel' in progress, 'The Road,' there is a cameo turn for a seriously vocal rubber ducky. Yet what emerges above all is a picture of a pianist enamored of his instrument as handed down by the master builders of the 19th century."

Bach Violin Sonata 2, Bartók Sonata 2 for Violin and Piano

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Performer: Midori
Ms. Midori writes at her website: "The Six Sonatas and Partitas (actually three sonatas and three Partitas), are the pinnacle of the violin repertoire because of their complexity and their beauty. Emotionally powerful and passionately involving, these pieces challenge the performer to the limit of his or her technique and musical integrity. Many violinists feel that a lifetime is not long enough to master these great works. Adjustments have often been made to the modern violin to increase the tension of the strings in relation to different parts of the instrument so as to maximize the sound volume to meet the demands of large concert hall settings. During Bach's lifetime, violins had shorter fingerboards and lower bridges; thus playing double and triple notes was less difficult than the same execution on modern-day adjusted instruments. Bach's works demonstrate complete mastery of contrapuntal writing, which requires many voices to be played simultaneously while often retaining the independence of the lines. …"

Santogold: Santogold

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Contents: L.E.S. artistes (written by S. White, J. Hill) — You'll find a way (by White, Hill, C. Feinstein) — Shove it (by White, Hill, N. Juwan, B. Shayman) — Say aha (by White, Hill) — Creator ("vs. Switch and Fred Nasty"; by White, D. Taylor, D. McFadyen) — My superman (by White, Hill, W. Pentz) — Lights out (by White, Hill, Feinstein) — Starstruck(by White, Hill) — Unstoppable (by White, Pentz) — I'm a lady (feat. Trouble Andrew; by White, Hill, Feinstein, T. Andrew) — Anne (by White, Hill, Taylor) — You'll find a way (Switch and Sinden remix).
Personnel: Vocals by S. White, bass by J. Hill, drums by C. Treece.
Wired wrote: "Music wonks will have a field day trying to describe the vibe of Santi White (aka Santogold). New wave! Dub reggae! The second coming of M.I.A.! What's great is that they'll all be right. The butt-shaking rhythms on this self-titled debut live up to the hype that heralded them. Or, as White sings, 'The rules I break got me a place up on the radar'" ("Playlist," 5/08, p. 64).

20th Century Duos for Violin and Cello

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Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times: "A recording of three seldom-heard works for an unconventional combination of instruments might seem a risky venture. But the music is terrific and the performances compelling on this surprisingly exciting and excellently engineered recording. Kodaly is probably best known as the composer who worked with Bartok exploring and documenting authentic Hungarian and Eastern European folk music. Kodaly’s 1915 Sonata for Solo Cello, an audacious, moody and demanding work, is starting to become a staple of the cello repertory. This new recording should bring overdue attention to Kodaly’s 1914 Duo for Violin and Cello, a formidable 25-minute piece in three movements. … The Kodaly effectively sets up Sessions’s 1978 Duo, a concentrated 10-minute work of extreme contrasts, shifting meters and rigorous manipulation of motifs. In this company, despite dreamy Impressionistic episodes, Ravel’s inventive 20-minute Sonata, completed in 1922, comes across as a fully contemporary work, alive with angular counterpoint and insistent rhythmic drive" (6/1/08).

The Doors: Live in Pittsburgh 1970

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Contents: Back door man — Love hides — Five to one — Roadhouse blues — Mystery train — Away in India — Crossroads blues — Universal mind — Someday soon — When the music's over — Break on through — Push push — The soft parade vamp — Tonight you're in for a special treat — Close to you — Light my fire. Recorded May 2, 1970 at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena.
Artist website: http://www.thedoors.com/
Personnel: The Doors: Ray Manzarek (keyboards), Jim Morrison (vocals), John Densmore (drums), Robby Krieger (guitar).
According to Wikipedia: "The Doors' music during the 1965-68 era was a fusion of hard rock, blues-rock, and acid rock. The origins of The Doors lay in a chance meeting between acquaintances and fellow UCLA film school alumni Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach California in July 1965. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs and, at Manzarek's encouragement, sang 'Moonlight Drive.' …"

Kapell Rediscovered: The Australian Broadcasts

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Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times: "In August 1953 the astonishing young American pianist William Kapell traveled to Australia for an extended tour. … On his return trip to New York … the DC-6 Kapell was flying in … fell apart in flames. … For years Kapell’s reputation has been sustained by the limited number of commercial recordings he made for RCA and scattered recordings taken from live performances. … Then, in 2004, came news that during the Australian tour in 1953 a Melbourne department store salesman and lover of classical music, Roy Preston, had made recordings of several Kapell performances. Mr. Preston … obsessively recorded concerts transmitted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on a home machine. … Jon M. Samuels, the engineer who produced the 1998 set, took charge of the effort to restore the recordings from the 1953 tour. … Now Sony BMG Masterworks has released a two-disc album, 'Kapell Rediscovered: The Australian Broadcasts.' Containing 150 minutes of music, it adds immeasurably to the Kapell legacy" ("Found Gems from a Pianist Gone …," 6/8/08).

No Age: Nouns

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Contents: Miner — Eraser — Teen creeps — Things I did when I was dead — Cappo — Keechie — Sleeper hold — Errand boy — Here should be my home — Impossible bouquet — Ripped knees — Brain burner.
Play wrote: "Man. Is it me or are there a [large number] of bands out there that are made up of two people? For real. But instead of biting on the candy-pop of the White Stripes or getting all spastically chaotic like Lightning Bolt, these cats just play a simple yet well done indie-pop-punk rock. No pretense. … They just put it out there. I mean, how the hell else are you gonna do it when all you gots is a guitar, a drum and a bunch of samples, y'know? And those effects and samples aren't the typical disjointed, 'put it in 'cause it's weird, maaaaaaan' noise filler. It adds and supports and thickens the L.A. duo puffing up their minimal instruments. … Real catchy, real tasty [and] gets better with each listen. Me likey. And big ups to Sub Pop for the inner book in the cd. Cool!" ("Listen: Stick It in Your Ear …", 6/11/08, p. 19).

Featured Book: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross (continued)

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Mr. Ross writes in Chapter 15, "Sunken Cathedrals": "Nothing seems more inherently unlikely than the idea of a great American opera — possibly the greatest since Porgy and Bess — based on the events surrounding President Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972. When the director Peter Sellars first proposed the subject, [composer John] Adams assumed he was joking. At the premiere, which took place at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, many critics thought the same. Yet Sellars knew what he was doing. By yanking opera into a universally familiar contemporary setting, he was almost forcing his composer to clean out all the cobwebs of the European past. Adams also had the advantage of an extraordinary libretto by the poet Alice Goodman. Many lines come straight from the documentary record — the speeches and poetry of Chairman Mao, the fine-spun oratory of Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, the convoluted utterances and memoirs of Nixon — but they coalesce into an epic poem of recent history, a dream narrative in half-rhyming couplets" (pp. 536-537.

Featured Book: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross (continued)

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Mr. Ross writes in Chapter 12, "'Grimes! Grimes!'": "Shostakovich's letters indicate that the dedication 'to victims of fascism and war' was something of a cover for his own private anguish. To Glikman he wrote: 'The title page could carry the dedication: "To the memory of the composer of this quartet" … It is a pseudo-tragic quartet.' … The personal motto D S C H, which sounded pseudo-triumphantly in the finale of the Tenth Symphony, is woven into almost every page of the Eighth Quartet. It appears alongside quotations from previous Shostakovich works, including the Tenth Symphony, Lady Macbeth, and the youthful First Symphony, not to mention Tchaikovsky's Pathétique, Siegfried's Funeral Music from Götterdämmerung, and the revolutionary song 'Tormented by Grievous Bondage.' Was Shostakovich speaking ironically when he described the quartet as an exercise in 'self-glorification'? The designation might apply to the ending of the Tenth, but it seems inappropriate for the Eighth Quartet, which trails off into a black, static chorale of lamentation" (p. 437).

Featured Book: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross (continued)

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Mr. Ross writes in Chapter 11, "Brave New World": "Howard Pollack, in his biography of Copland, declares that the composer's political ordeal … did not bring about a dramatic change in his style. … Only four certifiably dodecaphonic pieces ensued. … In other works, Copland still employed one form or another of his populist manner. His most ambitious project of the fifties was the opera The Tender Land, which applied the language of Billy the Kid and Appalachian Spring to a quietly moving tale of life on the open prairie. Erik Johns's scenario had undercurrents of social protest: the community becomes irrationally suspicious of two strangers in their midst, enacting in microcosm the paranoias of McCarthyite America. Open-interval melodies and spare instrumentation bathe the scene in the familiar Edenic light. Copland hoped that The Tender Land would be broadcast on television, but the networks took no interest. New York City Opera presented it instead. Copland's thousand-dollar commissioning fee was a gift from Rodgers and Hammerstein, the creators of Oklahoma!" (p. 381).

Featured Book: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross (continued)

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Mr. Ross writes about Appalachian Spring: "The idea for the piece came from the choreographer Martha Graham. … The title comes from Hart Crane's great, flawed poetic cycle The Bridge, and specifically from the section 'The Dance': O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge;/ Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends/ And northward reaches in that violet wedge/ Of Adirondacks! … Graham decided on the title only after Copland had completed the score, but according to Howard Pollack the idea of somehow using The Bridge as a source was present from the start. Crane and Copland had met in bohemian-modernist circles in the twenties, and although they had little contact, both were striving to create modern American myths. The bridge at the center of Crane's poem is the Brooklyn Bridge, which is said to 'lend a myth to God.' It is a sacred symbol in a city given over to flashing images and frantic movement. Elsewhere in the poem, Crane finds moments of transcendence … in the emptiness of the American wilderness" (pp. 301-302).

Featured Book: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross (continued)

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Mr. Ross writes in Chapter 5, "Apparition from the Woods": "The [Sibelius] Fifth begins and ends in crystalline major-key tonality, but it is an unconventional and staggeringly original work. The schemata of sonata form dissolve before the listener's ears; in place of a methodical development of well-defined themes there is a gradual, incremental evolution of material through trancelike repetitions. The musicologist James Hepokoski, in a monograph on the symphony, calls it 'rotational form'; the principal ideas of the work come around again and again, each time transformed in ways both small and large. The themes really assume their true shape only at the end of the rotation — what Hepokoski calls the telos. … Music becomes a search for meaning within an open-ended structure — a microcosm of the spiritual life. At the beginning of the Fifth, the horns present a softly glowing theme, the first notes of which spell out a symmetrical, butterfly-like set of intervals. … Sibelius's key is heroic E-flat major, but the melody turns out to be a rather flighty thing, never quite touching the ground. …" (pp. 166-168).

Featured Book: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross (continued)

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Mr. Ross writes in Chapter 3, "Dance of the Earth": "Stravinsky … asked Cocteau to write a French-language adaptation of the story of Oedipus. He then had Cocteau's text translated into Latin. 'The choice [of Latin],' Stravinsky later wrote, 'had the great advantage of giving me a medium not dead, but turned to stone and so monumentalized as to have become immune to all risk of vulgarization.' … 'Kaedit nos pestis' — 'Plague is upon us' — the chorus chants at the opening, over five booming chords in the key of B-flat minor. On its own, the core progression would sound a bit creaky and cliched. What adds drama is the bass line, which sticks to the notes of the B-flat-minor chord but gnashes against the changing chords above. The impression, here and throughout the work, is of damaged, decaying grandeur — like acid streaks on cathedral marble. … Stravinsky's alertness to the rhythm of words puts bounce and thrust into the archaic Latin text. The word 'moritur,' coming at the end of the three opening gestures, sets in motion a purring triplet figure that propels the work to the end" (pp. 116-117).

Featured Book: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross

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Mr. Ross writes in Chapter 1, "The Golden Age": "The setting for the premiere of [Mahler's] Sixth was the steel town of Essen, in the Ruhr. Nearby was the armaments firm of Krupp, whose cannons had rained ruin on French armies in the war of 1870-71 and whose long-distance weaponry would play a critical role in the Great War to come. … Indeed, the Sixth opens with something like the sound of an army advancing — staccato As in the cellos and basses, military-style taps of a drum, a vigorous A-minor theme strutting in front of a wall of eight horns. A little later, the timpani set forth a marching rhythm of the kind that you can still hear played in Alpine militia parades in Austria and neighboring countries: Left! Left! Left-right-left! The first movement follows the well-worn procedures of sonata form, complete with a repeat of the exposition section. The first theme is modeled on that of Schubert's youthful, severe A-Minor Sonata, D. 784. The second theme is an unrestrained Romantic effusion, a love song in homage to [Mahler's wife] Alma. It is so unlike the first that it inhabits a different world. …" (p. 21).

Nick Lowe: Jesus of Cool

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Eric R. Danton wrote in his Hartford Courant blog Sound Check: "Nick Lowe was nearly famous once. In the early '70s, the English singer and writer of the song '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding' played bass in the pub-rock band Brinsley Schwarz, a popular group in England that was widely considered to be on the brink of a breakthrough in the United States. Yet it never happened. 'I have had many occasions to fall to my knees and give thanks for that,' Lowe tells me during a recent interview … 'The thing I wasn't interested in was being actually famous. Infamous, perhaps, but I didn't really want to be a celebrity.' Instead, he established himself as a solo artist and producer who, in addition to releasing acclaimed albums including 'Jesus of Cool' and 'At My Age,' has worked with Elvis Costello, the Cramps and the John Hiatt-Ry Cooder side project Little Village. His attitude toward fame stands in marked contrast to the celebrity-driven nature of pop culture today, where wannabe singers think TV 'reality' competitions are the fastest way to stardom. 'I look at those kids and think, "Ugh, don't do it."'"

Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2, Ravel Piano Concerto

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Marguerite Long wrote: "One day at a dinner in the house of Mme de Saint-Marceaux, whose salon, according to Colette, was 'a citadel of artistic intimacy,' Ravel said to me point-blank: 'I am composing a concerto for you. Do you mind if it ends pianissimo and with trills?' 'Of course not,' I replied, only too happy to realize the dream of all virtuosi. … Negotiations took place for a first performance of the Concerto in G in Holland, and the Concertgebouw even announced it … for 9 March 1931. But the news came that Ravel was ill and the work could not be ready. It was far from being finished and Ravel had great trouble in completing it. He told his friend Zogheb, 'I can't manage to finish my Concerto, so I am resolved not to sleep for more than a second. When my work is finished I shall rest in this world … or in the other.' In the meantime Ravel decided that the première of the Concerto should take place in Paris on 14 January 1932. Our Dutch friends … were asked to postpone their concert until the spring. They also agreed to free me from the contract to play in Amsterdam that same day" (quoted in Ravel Remembered, p. 73).

The Black Keys: Attack & Release

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Eric R. Danton wrote in his Hartford Courant blog Sound Check: "After demonstrating over four albums a talent for playing raw garage blues, the Black Keys faced a tricky situation with their fifth release: how to freshen the band’s sound without losing the essence of what makes the Akron, Ohio, duo so electrifying. The answer lay with Brian Burton, a.k.a. Danger Mouse, the producer who blended the Beatles with Jay-Z on his pirate release 'The Grey Album' and then became half of the future-soul duo Gnarls Barkley. Pairing themselves with Danger Mouse was an inspired choice for Black Keys singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney. 'Attack & Release' is a stunning extension of the pair’s sound, injecting an element of nuance into the bare-bones guitar-drums framework that remains the core of the band. … 'Attack & Release' is also the first Black Keys record to feature guest performers. … With its varied sound and newly expansive songwriting, 'Attack & Release' is a bold, but fitting, way for the Black Keys to prove they know more than one way to make a statement" ("CD Review," 4/2/08).

Bartok: String Quartets 1-6

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Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times: "The majority of string quartets founded by conservatory students flush with idealism do not survive. But ever since Corina Belcea-Fisher, a Romanian violinist, brought together student colleagues from the Royal College of Music in London to found the Belcea Quartet in 1994, the ensemble has thrived. Understandably, for it is technically accomplished and uncommonly probing. The quartet has earned accolades on international tours and released valuable recordings on EMI Classics, most recently a two-CD album of the six Bartok string quartets. Along the way the quartet has undergone some typical changes of personnel. Its roster now includes the violinist Laura Samuel, a founding member; the violist Krzysztof Chorzelski; and the cellist Antoine Lederlin. … Bartok’s teeming Third Quartet (1927), just 17 minutes long, is generated from his ingenious manipulation of small thematic cells and rhythmic figurations. On one level, it comes across like a shockingly modernistic version of a folkloric Hungarian fantasy" ("Timeless Daring Revealed …," 4/7/08).

Mudcrutch: Mudcrutch

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Alan Light wrote in the New York Times: "Thirty-two years after the band broke up, Tom Petty has reassembled Mudcrutch, the group he started in his native Gainesville, Fla., and moved to Los Angeles, seeking stardom. Mudcrutch didn’t hit it big back in the 1970s, but out of the band’s ashes Mr. Petty created the Heartbreakers, who have generated a staggering stream of hits for three decades. … About two years ago, Mr. Petty, 57, said, 'I just had this random thought: "I really liked that band, I wonder what it would be like to get them together."' … Last August [Tom] Leadon and [Randall] Marsh flew to California and stayed at Mr. Petty’s home in Malibu; the next day the three joined up with [Mike] Campbell and [Benmont] Tench, the lead guitarist and keyboard player in the Heartbreakers, who are also Mudcrutch alumni. 'When Tom called me and said he wanted to do this,' Mr. Campbell said, 'my first reaction was, why?' Mr. Marsh said: 'I thought we’d come in here, do a few songs, it would be nice to see everybody. But I think Tom had some kind of insight that something would happen'" ("Running …," 4/20/08).